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Stoneman Shooting Survivor Gives Powerful Speech

Emma Gonzalez, a student at Stoneman Douglas High School, gave an impassioned speech during a gun control protest in Fort Lauderdale Saturday.

(Published Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018)

In an impassioned speech during a gun control rally in Fort Lauderdale Saturday, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Emma Gonzalez called for stricter gun laws in a delivery that’s now going viral.

Gonzalez, along with other speakers at the protest, directed several of her comments to President Donald Trump.

“If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy, and how it should never have happened, and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association,” she said as hundreds of rally-goers cheered in support.

Gonzalez continued to voice her thoughts on how the mass shooting – which killed 17 people and injured several others – spoke to an immense need for gun regulation.

“We know that they are claiming that there are mental health issues, and I am not a psychologist, but we need to pay attention to the fact that this isn’t just a mental health issue. He wouldn’t have hurt that many students with a knife!”

Gonzalez’ messages have been shared across numerous social media pages and news outlets. While some are critical of her remarks, others have been influenced and moved by her words.

“We are going to be the kids that you read about in textbooks,” she said. “Not because we’re going to be another statistic about mass shootings in America, but because, as Justice David said, we are going to be the last mass shooting.”